November 09, 2006

A whirlwind tour of selected web sites I've designed and built since 1994

The last time I worked with these web thumbnails was with my old Flash portfolio. As much as I've enjoyed Flash and Director over the years, they aren't the easiest end-products to update over time (unless I want to integrate a database).

So now this is my web portfolio. Some are solo design projects; some have artwork that was subcontracted out or provided by the client or ad agency. On some of the larger, more comprehensive sites, I directed the graphic design, site design, programming, and usability teams as project manager. With such big sites, the team members' contributions were essential, and I am deeply grateful for their work.

Each thumbnail listed will include a short case description of the project. This is not a complete archive of all the sites I've worked on, but each one is representative of its period in the evolution of the web.

Here's a teaser... from my most recent launch...

to an oldie but goodie...

The Continue link will go from the present, backward in time, to the early days of Mosaic and the beginnings of the World Wide Web (I'm still trying to recreate my first 1994 home page, if I can just find that old Mosaic gray background [grin]). I'll keep updating this permanent link, to preserve a bit of my own web history. You'll also find below a piece I did for one of the longest continuously publishing online magazines from the earliest days of the web (CMC Magazine), still available at all its original links.

Originally developed as an e-learning start-up in late 1999, working with a Prentice-Hall textbook project. Serendipit-e, Inc. aims to re-envision computer-assisted pedagogies so they don't simply reproduce face-to-face classroom conventions online. Focus: Active and collaborative project-based and portfolio-based learning. With the dot.com collapse, the site continues as a locus for information on e-learning, groupware, and student-centered learning. Solo design and custom CSS. I own and maintain this domain and host about 30+ public and private sites here on the Typepad platform.

Filter blog developed during a semester teaching journalism at the University of Montana, Fall 2005. Focus: to shine a light on new rhetorical techniques and sophisticated interactive media activities being developed in the public relations industry, to help journalism students and journalists become more aware of the methods of persuasion being used on them. Solo design and custom CSS.

Dynamic site to highlight current projects of an Emmy-award winning freelance documentary photojournalist and film-maker and his production team based in Alaska. Solo design and custom CSS, using photographic material provided by Weston Productions, on the Typepad platform.

A virtual memorial space using Typepad blog software, for students and friends who could not attend the Arkansas memorial service. Archives a guest book, obituaries, memorial essays, book dedications, and other events organized in Jim's honor. Launched with the permission and at the request of the family. Solo design and custom CSS. Most of the original photography is also my work.

Director of major project/grant through Clemson PSA (part of the university's land grant mission) to redesign the portal and numerous client sites (Extension, Garrison Arena, South Carolina Botanical Garden, Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, and others). Approximately $100,000 funded over three years to build a lab, fund four MAPC graduate assistants to train as web designers and consultants and several undergraduate programmers. One year after formal launch in late 1999, the site was getting more hits than the Clemson Home Page. Team conducted formal usability study with coded video data (report available here) and also ran other nationally-funded usability research through the lab. Site included a Flash image map, Flash help files, and features aimed at specific audience analysis demographics.

The Ballad of the Internet Nutball: The Xenaverse in Cyberspace (launched July 1998)An online ethnography and rhetorical study of of how an online fandom community both challenged and integrated into the world of traditional mass media producers.Link: www.nutball.com

Cited as the first "born-digital" hypermedia dissertation to be accepted in the United States (cannot be reproduced on paper; usually does not read the same way twice).Link: www.nutball.com/dissertation

Online ethnography and rhetorical analysis was accepted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in July 1998. Since then the permanent site has received international recognition and is required reading in graduate seminars both within and outside the U.S., receiving international trAce award (UK), Dec 2000. I was interviewed in New York Times article on cult TV in 2000. Research was subject of a visual rhetoric study by Mary E. Hocks in June 2003 issue of the Journal of College Composition and Communication.

Solo HTML, graphic and interaction design for the equivalent of about 300 pages of material: text, graphics, video, and sound, with a Shockwave (Director) Navigation Map. Most "fair use" artwork taken from the fandom community remains the property of MCA-Universal.

One of dozens of course webs I've designed over the years. Focus: professional communication techniques, interaction design, visual communication, and software tools such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash (Director in the Rensselaer iteration). I use my own sites instead of the more restrictive tools like WebCT and Blackboard that later became available to professors. I've been putting together my own groupware, chat, bulletin board, and web publishing tools since first teaching with computers in the early 1990s. An archive of my course syllabi and project specs are available here. Many of the original course web designs and non-linear student webbed projects can be accessed in my archives here.

Looking back at this site, I'm remembering what it was like to design for 300 baud modems as well as high speed university connections, especially since I like bold graphics. In addition to the "High Band" and "Low Band" options above (before there were sniffer scripts), I also loaded another provocative question to appear behind the big graphic while it loaded (with today's fast load times, it is impossible to see it). The goal of the site was to dish plenty of attitude while at the same time appealing to parents who help students make enrollment decisions.

EMAC was a new interdisciplinary undergraduate degree program launched at RPI in 1996 between communications and electronic arts departments. I directed a team of four communications grad students who researched and wrote the content. Solo design, coding, and administration (aside from student artwork). This site won "Best of RPInfo" in 1996 and was part of the work cited when I received the RPI Founder's Award, the highest award given at the university. Enrollment doubled in just one year and the program was written up in Wired.

Requested article for a special issue on Imagination and Hypertext. John December's Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine (ISSN 1076-027X) was one of the first online publications to appear on the web, publishing monthly for an international audience from 1994 to 1999 on topics related to "people, events, technology, public policy, culture, practices, study, and applications related to human communication and interaction in online environments." While the articles are in the magazine template, this creative non-fiction piece was written in branching structure native hypertext.